Remember the Brownings?
Both Elizabeth Barrett and Robert would turn cartwheels just to tickle
the keys and find poems emerging with no need for handmade corrections.
Imagine their productivity with computers. "How Do I Love Thee" might
be a novel. "My Last Duchess" would emerge as Merryl Streep. Together,
the most famous "Bs" in English literary history could glide down the
red carpet to the Oscars.

The cameras would capture the Victorian invalid fainting into those manly
arms. No need for publicity for those two!

This movie captures
this very romantic compulsion. Technology may be fast, but tempers flare
even faster when Tom Hanks woos a woman he knows only through her words.
Do we fall in love with faces and bodies -- or diction and literary style?
Even the mysterious lady in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
can't stop gushing at the thought of meeting her favorite literary character.
So, with rare subtlety, You've Got Mail produces two correspondents
who struggle between double plotlines. As characters, they snipe and argue.
As writers, they court with images that tempt meltdown.

Literary romance knocks
the stuffing out of super flesh flicks. These stars only share a single
embrace and a dog that deserves screen credits. Brinkley comes when he's
called -- and races straight toward Meg Ryan. Her email moniker -- Shop
Girl -- becomes a term of endearment. His email handle gives away his
address -- but who can find that in a city as big New York and all outdoors,
too? The character of the city seduces both lovers and audience as we
begin to imagine venturing there. "It would be a shame to miss New York
in the spring," the hero says. Of course, the fall, with leaves cavorting
like birds, already accomplished our surrender.

For a sense of setting,
just let this movie run away with you. Dart up and down those stairways
to those beloved brownstones. Scan the shops you always hoped to visit.
Pick one -- and in we go.

Now, for introductions
-- Hmmm. You didn't know that New Yorkers can be the most personable people
on the planet? Well, take this time trip back to the city before 9/11.
On street corners -- and even on rooftops -- police tend to maintaining
civilization. (Forget the Taliban!) Soldiers don't appear on city boulevards,
either. Security checks occur to no one. Are we venturing into nostalgia
if we simply wish the world could stay like this? Or, do we succumb to
fantasies that once -- but never again -- New York meant romance?

In this movie, New
York becomes a peek-a-boo stage. Little cubbyholes harbor men and women
looking for each other. Doors peek open or slam as they decide on pursuit
or shutting chapters in a book. Ryan and Hanks move so well that each
conveys character though a single gesture. Shop Girl even bobs about on
air! For a guide to the romance of writing, who can improve on You've
Got Mail? Its poetic screenplay offers whole "bouquets of newly sharpened
pencils."